Memphis Gaydar

Lakeland Commissioner Makes Anti-Gay Remarks on Facebook

Lakeland City Commissioner Clark Plunk made a number of anti-gay remarks in a Facebook thread about a gay student from Christian Brothers High School who wasn't allowed to take his male date to last weekend's homecoming dance.

Plunk's comments, which included a statement calling gays "vicious spiteful people," were made in response to a post about Lance Sanderson, the CBHS senior who asked if he could bring his date to the dance. CBHS changed their policy after Sanderson's request was turned down by an administrator. The homecoming dance policy stated "CBHS students may attend the dance by themselves, with other CBHS students, or with a girl from another school. For logistical reasons, boys from other schools may not attend."

That dance was Saturday, and Sanderson did not attend. On Monday, when he came to class, he was asked to leave for the week. An administrator told him "had 890 other students to worry about and could not deal with me," Sanderson told the Flyer on Monday afternoon.

Here are screenshots of Plunk's comments.

The Tennessee Equality Project issued a statement responding to Plunk's comments: "Elected officials are meant to serve all their constituents. These kind of disparaging remarks are improper for an office-holder, especially for an official totally removed from the reach of this controversy."